


Say Nothing

by Grimmy88



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmy88/pseuds/Grimmy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick doesn't make their relationship easy to explain, in fact often times he makes it impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Nothing

            They say nothing because they never do. Nick says nothing about booking a flight in the first place and he doesn’t bother to say anything when he packs up his bags either. Most of the time Ellis feels similarly inclined to keep the silence.

            Mainly because if there was one thing they agreed on it was not to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Or don’t add fuel to the fire. Though Ellis figures it isn’t really so much of a big, blazing inferno but more like one of those coal fires underground his grandpa had told him about once. Most people don’t know or think about them until something reminds them.

            It really is so easy to forget about it all, too. In the beginning Nick had left every other weekend (which could sometimes miraculously grow to engulf both Monday and Tuesday). Ellis believes most of those hours were spent in Vegas but he wouldn’t put New York beyond the conman either. Regardless, he always came back with a hefty profit and new clothes and hickeys and foreign smells that probably always accompany rich people as if it was their preferred cologne.

            They never mention it.

            And Ellis never lets the gambler touch him until at least the smell is gone. And he always tries to make the bruises darker.

            Those trips had begun to slacken eventually from twice a month for days to twice a month for two, and then once a month for two, and then a sporadic two stretched unnamed lengths apart. Each time more and more money accompanied him.

            Ellis stopped trying to pinpoint the smells because he was sick of feeling nauseous.

            Now Nick looks up at him when he finishes zipping his clothes from view.

            “How long’re ya gonna be?” Ellis asks, the words ‘this time’ cowardly in the way they cling to the tips of his teeth, held back.

            “I don’t know,” Nick answers predictably. He lifts the bag from his bed and the sheets do everything but sigh as they smooth clean. The shoulder of his suit crumples and catches under the strap he props over it. “It won’t be too long.”

            Ellis means to end it there but it’s been four and some weeks since he’d last left and they had seemed to be getting by just fine on those procured funds. So he says as much.

            The older man shakes his head and a line glares from between his eyebrows so he exits the bedroom. Ellis stays behind, listens to the front door open, and let’s his partner tell him: “I’ll be back soon.”

 

/           /           /

 

            Ellis hadn’t liked it as a plan, really. His pride had conjured it up after two straight weekends of abandonment somewhere near the beginning of this whole thing.

            Of course walking into a gay bar was a lot harder than he’d imagined it to be. He guessed that might’ve been because of his hat or that he didn’t own pants anywhere near as tight as all the guys in the place. But he’d gotten in and from there everything was easy. Everyone was friendly and handsy and it was all so very uncomfortable.

            He’d tried to remind himself that Nick was doing the same thing—sucking and fucking with some stranger. Some stranger that was probably a woman, though… a woman with curves and crevices, a woman who was softer, easier, cleaner because the area between her legs was.

            But Ellis had picked a gay bar. He’d always had the distinct feeling if he ever had brought a girl home or even mentioned one Nick might congratulate him. So he had tried to pick a man because he’d wanted it to hurt, he’d wanted it to stick.

            In the end he wasn’t sure which one of them it would’ve affected more if he’d gone through with it.

 

/           /           /

 

            The papers Nick shows him claim the gambler is clean.

            He still makes him use a condom that night.

 

/           /           /

 

            “I don’t get it! You want me’ta leave or what?!”

            “Did I say that?”

            “Do ya need’ta after all’a this?!”

            “Stop yelling.”

            “Why ain’t this enough?”

            _Because it’s nothing like what I had._ “I come back, don’t I? I pay the bills. All our shit is here.”

            “That’s what I don’t get! If this ain’t whatchya want why do it at all?”

            “It has nothing to do with you, Ellis.”

            “D’ya want me’ta go?”

            “No.”

 

/           /           /

 

            They breathe in the scent of each other and Ellis interlocks his ankles at the small of the larger man’s back. He cups his palms over the back of biceps and then shoulders—down again to smooth skin under which he can feel shifting muscles and supporting bones.

            He presses it all down and stubs his nose repeatedly on the strong chords connecting neck and shoulder, just to feel it close. He feels the wisp of hair no his own all the way down his torso. He feels the way two thick hands, card playing hands, grip him here and there, at his thighs and the spaces that connect them to his pelvis.

            The position is awkward and there isn’t much thrusting occurring. They undulate against one another, grunt and breathe. They rock into one another, cock and skin and kiss.

            Ellis puts one of his hands to the back of Nick’s hair, pulling in refusal as the older man’s musculature whispers with hints of a rising movement.

            They come like that, the ex-con buried deep and full with each push and flex testing that boundary and with the mechanic trapped between their bellies. He coats them both and he hopes they lay that way long after it dries.

 

/           /           /

 

            Maybe it went something like this:

            “We should get a place,” Ellis had said. He’d said it on account of Nick always showing up to screw him in his mother’s house and how that wasn’t exactly exciting when you were an adult.

            Or maybe sometime later it went like this:

            “I’m buying a place,” Nick had said. Bringing it up while lying together had seemed meaningful to the younger survivor at the time.

            Maybe they realized it like this:

            “Can we give my boxers a place?” Ellis had asked. He’d been looking into the dresser and seeing as how Nick always complained when his underwear was on the floor he figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask for a home for them.

            Or:

            “Yer turn’ta cook or mine?”

            Or hell, it could’ve been:

            “What did you do?!”

            “Yer laundry?”

            “You shrunk my favorite shirt, dumbshit.”

 

/           /           /

 

            The hospital calls at twenty-seven after midnight. He’s awake because it’s the weekend even if Nick isn’t there. He turns down the spew of noise from his video game and puts the plastic between his shoulder and jaw so he can keep his fingers on the controller.

            They tell him that Nick is in a hospital in their city, not too far away.

            “You’re his emergency contact,” they explain.

            Ellis frowns his eyebrows at the television and steels himself as they explain about the alleged assault of which he’d been the victim. ‘Victim’ was pushing it, of course. Whatever his lover had done it had probably deserved a beating in response, especially if, as Nick himself had said to him once, he was sloppy enough to get caught.

            Even so, the southerner finds himself donning jeans and a jacket and then he’s already at the hospital, walking to and into Nick’s room and then he’s at his side. He wants to take the older man’s hand because spots of it are the wrong color.

            He doesn’t, though, wary of the incredulous and judgmental look in the eyes watching him.

            Nick’s mouth is split, there are dark swatches of skin that stain the normality of his natural pigment all over his face and jaw until they disappear from sight under the gown. His arms, the only other visible part of his body, are black, blue, and red.

            He gets closer and is startled by how the white of the conman’s right eye is aggravated crimson.

            “What happened?”

            The cut in his lips allows Nick to smirk and the hick guesses his tone wasn’t as aloof as he’d tried.

            “A big guy with an equally big fist is what happened,” the smirk says.

            “Yeah, but why?”

            “Money, alcohol, women?” He shrugs. “I can’t remember.” They both know he does.

            “Y’alright?” Ellis raises his hand to wave it over the wounded body before him.

            “Cracked ribs, supposedly. Otherwise I’m fine. Sorry they had to call you this late.”

            Ellis joins their hands.

 

/           /           /

 

            People who know tell him it’s not his fault. Ellis calmly replies that he knows; that he’s fine. he doesn’t explain why he deals with it.

            They tell him he can do better. He smiles at them, hoping it’s enough. He doesn’t want to tell them that inside his chest that never matters.

            They tell him what a shitty person Nick is. He lets them know everybody’s got their problems. He doesn’t tell them that a lot of the gambler’s problems are things he admires.

            They tell him to leave the bastard. Ellis leaves them instead.

 

/           /           /

 

            The ex-con comes home early, a first. He’s walking through the door just two minutes after Ellis has taken up on the couch, blanket around his shoulders, a bowl of popcorn on the table, and a beer keeping it company. Nick pays his regards to each of the items, doesn’t look at Ellis and walks away.

            The hick thinks about following, half pissed at the dismissal and half genuinely curious as to his return. He opts not to, though, figuring the northerner would’ve said something if he had felt any sort of inclination. If he follows and pushes the issue now things will only get worse.

            Besides the shower’s running so why bug him now? It’d be best just to enjoy his beer and popcorn and not think about joining because even if he didn’t smell it he’s sure perfume is clinging to Nick’s broad shoulders and alcohol is riding on his every breath. He’s sure the soap can’t get all of it even with the way the suds are probably sliding a claim over his body. He can’t remember now whether or not the gambler’s mouth had been smeared with lipstick. He can’t remember any hickeys or disheveled clothes.

            His lover sits beside him and Ellis realizes he hasn’t touched his beer or the popcorn.

            Nick opens it for him. “What’re we watching?”

            At a loss for both words and memory the southerner takes the can without moving his lips. Nick’s breath doesn’t smell like alcohol nor is it minted as if that could cover up what’s underneath. He doesn’t smell at all except for the soap and shampoo they keep.

            Ellis pops the tab. “Some horror movie.” The liquid is cold and earthy on his tongue and throat. He doesn’t ask if Nick’s staying in like he wants to ask, like he wants him to.

            The former convict answers it anyway by taking the aluminum from Ellis’ hand, taking his own share. They deposit the popcorn on the younger man’s lap because there’s no space between their touching thighs.


End file.
